This week the prompt for I Must Confess is sleep.  I have written a few posts about sleep here on the blog.  Sleep and the musings household aren’t really on talking terms at the moment because one of the members of the house has decided that we really don’t need it around anymore.

Along with the terrible twos came along the dropping of the much loved day sleep.  I grudgingly gave it up when I realised that without a day sleep he went back to the normal night time bed time of 730pm.  My nights were reclaimed again…for a little while.

I’m not sure exactly when the bed times first started stretching out.  I think it was when was around 3.  We got a referral to a child psychologist at the local health centre.  To put it mildly..she was a knob.  Mr 4 hated her, and refused to interact with her at all.  She tried to force herself on him which of course made the whole situation worse.

His sleep did actually get better again for a little while..kind of like when you finally managed to get a Dr’s appointment for your sick child, who then proceeds to smile sweetly through the whole appointment.  So with that, the sleep issues seemed to take a bit of a back burner for a while.  Or maybe they just became normal.

Around 12 months ago, the sleeping, or lack of, got a hell of a lot worse.  After being interviewed for a sleep article, the psychologist involved with the interview suggested that maybe there was psychological issues at play with the not sleeping.  You see, Mr 4 goes through periods where he sleeps for only a few hours at a time…but it appears to have no effect on his demeanor.  Meanwhile I’m a sleep deprived mess.

With this new information, off we went to our GP for a referral to a psychologist and a pediatrician.  We got an appointment for the psychologist within a week (she was absolutely brilliant and Mr 4 loved going to see her) but are still waiting for an appointment with the pediatrician.

The psychologist was able to help Mr 4 work through a few anxieties that he had at the time, which were making leaving the house almost impossible.  I had hoped that by removing some of his anxiety that sleep would follow, but alas that was not to be the case.

We tried a few different things, including changing his bedtime and waking him up at a certain time.  Unfortunately all that happened was that there was even less sleep for everyone involved.  Which, didn’t seem to have an effect on Mr 4 but was making my own mental health issues a lot worse.

At the moment, we are still plodding along.  His sleep isn’t better, and a lot of the times it is a lot worse.  There are nights where he doesn’t sleep at all.  The only thing that has changed is my feelings towards it.  Sure there are still nights where I lose my cool and just want him to go the fuck to sleep, but those nights are a lot further apart than they used to be.  There isn’t much I can do at the moment to help him sleep.  We have tried all that has been asked of us..so we wait for the pediatrician appointment and hope for the best.

How are the sleep patterns in your house?